Dance Moms

Our son Lewi is five, and he exemplifies perpetual motion. To harness some of that enormous energy, we thought about getting him into gymnastics, but when I got a great deal on dance lessons, we decided to give those a try, since he loves moving to music.

With tap and ballet shoes in hand, we show up for the first lesson. The studio’s door opens into a long, narrow room with a reception area where parents—usually moms—can appraise their kids’ progress by watching the dancers via live video projected on large screens.

Although we’re not required to stay on site, most of the moms stick around, especially the first few weeks. Most of the moms seem to know each other. Two of them—I call them the pretty moms—usually sit together in another part of the waiting room, away from the rest of us. I sit near the door and flip through magazines while the other moms chat, and while it’s impossible not to eavesdrop, initially I make no effort to participate.

On the second week Cindy begins to make work of drawing me into the conversation. She’s perennially chatty and upbeat and, like most people, she’s curious about Lewi. I tell her our adoption story, and she tells me about her kids. She has five: four young adults with her ex-husband, and Alicia, a six-year-old charmer, with her second husband. I always think that our family, with older parents and a huge age gap between our kids, is so unique, but in this small dance class I’ve encountered another family much like ours.

Chris, one of the other moms, knows Cindy, although I’m not sure how. Chris, too, is a little bit older than your average mother of young children (although still much younger than I am).  Her husband died five years ago in a work-related accident, and now she is raising her two daughters alone. She’s a non-stop advocate for her older daughter, who has a list of special needs as long as your arm. She is often on the phone with the school, with various doctors, with her insurance company. She is kind and intelligent, and she still wears the pain of her loss.

A nanny brings a pair of dancers—sisters—to class, along with Paige, a sister too young for lessons.  During class Paige has the run of the lobby, climbing on chairs, hiding behind the vending machines, and shaking the candy machine until it yields M&Ms, while the nanny texts on her cell phone. About halfway through the year, the nanny stops coming and the mother, Kate, begins bringing the girls because Kate is no longer working. I thought she was a candidate for the pretty moms group, but she joins our conversations, probably because her girls go to the same school as Chris’s kids. Kate and her second husband have six kids in their blended family, and Kate would like more.

As the year goes on, we don’t all stay each week, but when we’re there, we talk. Initially the conversations revolve around our kids, but it’s amazing how quickly we move past small talk into conversations of real significance. We laugh a lot, and we develop a common story and an intimacy that I could not have anticipated. When I showed up on that first September afternoon, feeling like the new kid, I did not think I would fit in with them, and I didn’t want to. I was not looking for friendship, especially among these women whom I judged—misjudged—to be unremarkable.

Lewi’s not going to continue dance, and I’m okay with that. But I will miss these women. I’m grateful for our time together, and that the places where our paths collided became points of grace.